200” Triple-Beam Buck in KS
By Patrick Dunning
Jerame Hugunin was living every construction worker’s dream on opening day of the Kansas 2023 muzzleloader season. He let both of his concrete pouring crews go home early due to rain and headed afield on the heels of a 200” triple-beam buck daylighting consistently since July.
“It’s every construction worker’s dream to get rained out opening day, although I was going to find an excuse to get off work early anyway, that’s for dang sure,” Jerame told Buckmasters. “We had been in a dry spell for months and on opening day of muzzleloader and archery in Kansas it finally rained. The wind switched to out of the north that day, and I needed a north wind to hunt him.”
Jerame is a die-hard bow hunter and doesn’t own a muzzleloader, but a friend of his from Florida who knew about the whitetail had just arrived at deer camp and offered to let Jerame borrow his .50 Cal that afternoon. Still somewhat on the fence, Jerame packed the smoke pole and compound bow and rode his electric bike one-half mile through a steady downpour to a Redneck Blind overlooking a standing bean field.
Within a few minutes of getting settled at 2 p.m., a familiar doe and fawn entered the field and Jerame directed his attention to his left.
“I thought he was going to come from my left but he must have taken a shortcut to the feed pile because I did not see him come in. I opened the curtain and he’s standing there with a dozen other deer in the field,” Jerame said. “I opened the bow window, grabbed my bow, and by now the rain had stopped but it was still misting. I’ve lost deer in these type of conditions before and didn’t want to risk it, so I grabbed my buddy’s muzzleloader.”
The 22-pointer was quartering away at 41 yards when Jerame squeezed the trigger, bloodying the area above his left eye with the scope in the process.
“The scope rocked me right above the eye and I was seeing stars. Being the inexperienced gun hunter that I am, I squeezed the trigger pretty hard and it went off before I was ready,” Jerame said. “I walked over to where I thought he was standing, and then walked maybe 30 yards where he ran to and couldn’t find any sign of a hit. I go back to where I started, look down and there’s blood right there.”
He followed blood to the edge of a CRP field when the trail went cold.
“I put my hands on my knees and leaned down to look for more blood and that’s when I realized I scoped myself a little harder than I thought. I was leaking,” he said. “I was leaving my own blood trail and following my own blood. Probably should’ve got stitches.”
Jerame came back with two of his buddies and recovered the buck in the bean field a short time later.
The Coffey County whitetail from early September green scored 208 3/8 inches.